Academic+Advantages

Are bilinguals held back in their academic progress by working in two or more languages?

Recent research as outlined by Virginia Collier from George Mason University, 1 ﻿has shown that the use of the first language in mainstream will shorten the time students take to reach academic success. What has also become increasingly apparent is that if bilingual students are given the opportunity to draw on the resources they already have at their disposal in their heritage language, then they already have rich reserves to support and enhance what they are learning. In Europe where the Cognitive Learning In Language model has been used it has been found that bilingual students often score higher in the academic subjects even although they are doing one or more curriculum areas in a second language. Their language performance goes up dramatically and they certainly do no worse than those that are learning in their heritage language.

A study carried out by Thomas and Collier found that the more schooling students had in their heritage language the higher their achievement in their second language. They also found fewer dropouts associated with this type of immersion 'feature rich' education. ﻿2 This finding is further supported in the panel discussion on bilingualism which can be viewed on the Further Viewing & Reading page. Cummins 3 argues strongly that students are able to transfer the aptitiude they have in their heritage language to the learning taking place in their second language if the culture and language is validated and if the home and community are also involved in the learning process.

The implications for teaching are clearly to not shy away from challenging concepts but to present these in a familiar context and allow the students to bring their total language resource to the table to make meaning of these concepts. 4 Scaffolding 5 would be a key strategy used to facilitate the students learning so that they can make the transition to fully understanding the new concepts. There is also evidence that the socio cultural influence is key to the student's learning so strong relationships formed with the home and community are going to have a positive effect on the learning that takes place. 3 As the heritage language is seen to have such a positive influence on the learning that takes place in the second language the whole issue of retaining the heritage language becomes one of prime importance. 6.

1. Collier, V.P. (1995). Acquiring a second language for school. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.[] 2.Thomas & Collier (2002) in May, S. (2009) //Pasifika Languages Strategy: Key Issues.// (Chapter 4,pp14-19) Report to Ministry of Pacific Affairs. (Unpublished report) Auckland: MPIA 3. Cummins, J. (2001) Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention. In C. Baker, & N Hornberger, //An Introductory Reader to the Writings of Jim Cummins.// (pp 175-194) Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 4. Baker, C. (2000) The care and education of young bilinguals: An introduction for professionals. Clevedon, Uk: Multilingual Matters 5. Rogoff, B. (1990) Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York. Oxford University Press. 6. McCaffery, J. (1999) //Blessed with Bilingual Brains.// A paper presented at teh Innovations in Schooling Conference, Lakeside Convention Centre Auckland, New Zealand, July, 1999

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